ic-games Review - Space Rangers 2: Dominators - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - Space Rangers 2: Dominators - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

Space Rangers 2: Dominators

Information
Reviewer: William Hartley
Developer: Elemental Games
Publisher: 1C Company
Reviewed: PC
Genre: Multi Genre
UK Release: 01st Aug 2005
Article Date: 10th Aug 2005
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: 19.99
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 83%

Discuss this review in the Forums

Pros

Open gameplay,

Something foe everybody,

Original game.

Cons

None verbal characters

Screenshots

4 of 14

Space Ranger 2, published by 1C Company, is the follow up to Space Ranger, a role playing space game. The disc also includes the original Space Ranger game which was a nice plus. In the original game you had to fight the Klissans. The second game takes place some 200 years later and the foe is now the Dominators. There are plenty of this type of game around and a fair few of them are not up to much. Was Space Ranger 2 any better?

After a brief ‘tongue in cheek’ intro we got to the main menu and selected New Game where we were offered a choice of species with which to play the game. These are the five species that inhabit the Space Ranger universe; they all have different qualities and relationships to the others.

Each species also has a choice from five craft types to use; Fighter, Mercenary, merchant, Corsair and Pirate. Along with these choices are two other option boxes. In one you can set the basic difficulty level in four stages from Easy to Impossible; you can also open a custom menu that will give you eight other categories to set such as ‘are Scientists stupid’ or how many Black Holes there are. The other box allows you to set the initial skills and equipment. All these options mean the game can be customized in hundreds of ways. As a Space Ranger it is your job to defend the Galaxy from the invading Dominators, a cyber life form that consists of various Robots and mechanical fighting machines that are slowly taking over some of the 250 planets around some 60 star systems throughout the galaxy.

The beauty of Space Ranger 2 however, is that you don’t have to follow the game plan. You could just set yourself up as a Pirate or a Merchant and just go off and do your own thing, the amount of gameplay options makes this a truly open game, the sky really is the limit.

To see how the game played, thos IC-Games Space Ranger cadet chose to play as a Human and was offered, and accepted, a training course. We were taken to a screen where a large Alien gave instructions. He stands there, moving around and his lips move, but there is no sound! The instructions and your responses are through a text box on the left. This seemed a little odd at first but it is something that quickly becomes ‘normal’ Following instructions, we go to the hanger and take off. Our mission is to go to Earth and see the instructor who will give us our first mission. Clicking the ‘Fly’ button loads another screen with a view from space. There is a mini map of the local star system in the top right screen which is used to locate Planet Earth, as this is clicked on the view spins round and Earth is located. Clicking on the Earth will automatically land you on it and we are presented with another set of buttons to take us to various places like the Government, Trading Center or several others. Clicking the Government button takes us to the instructor who tells us what to do next.

We were given several short missions like going to another planet to buy Drugs (medicinal) and deliver them to those that needed them. These missions also included using Hyper Space to travel to other Star systems and combat practice. A set of icons pops up at the bottom when you move the cursor over them; these will list your objectives and offer hints in case you forget where you’re going. Other Star systems are accessed through a Galaxy map which shows the entire universe, click a Star system and your ship will travel to, and through, a worm hole to the area of the local Sun, you can then use the mini map to go to any planet in that system. Once on the planet you can visit the Trading Center (or any other ‘department’) where you can buy and\or sell various items. In the Combat training you learn that there are a couple of ways to get around and several modes of attack. Holding the cursor over any other spaceships will show you its course and flight duration, this can be used to plan your own intercept route. A click on the weapons button will give a set of concentric circles around your craft showing the range of the various armaments you carry. There’s even an auto attack button which will do all the tricky stuff for you. All this training eases you into the many aspects of the Space Ranger universe rather nicely.

Then there are the Planetary Battles. The training for this was loads of fun. You start at a base that will build Robots for you. You select every part of your Robots like the Amour, Weapons and mode of transport. Different body types mean different Robots can carry differing amounts of weaponry and again, all this is up to you, you can have what you want, even how many. When you have finished designing your Robots you click the build button and they start coming out of the base. There are a set of buttons to control these Robots, you can select as many as you like and tell them where to go and what to do or tell them to attack the enemy bases automatically. If you click Manual Control you get to drive one around using the arrow keys and a nice target ‘crosshair’ allows you to direct the firing of its weapons. The mouse wheel zooms in and out to give a bird’s eye view of the action or will take you down to ground level. Also at your base you can build turrets to protect it from enemy attacks. Supplies and extra Robots can be flown in to you to any enemy bases you have captured, it’s all very satisfying.

SCREENSHOTS

During the training we went on one mission and bought some more drugs, just trying to make a profit you understand, and were offered a chance to enter a smuggling deal. We thought ‘well why not?’ and clicked yes. The next thing that happened was we were arrested, taken to court, found guilty and sentenced to 70 days in Jail. Yet another facet of the game opened. This was all text based but was very well done. It started on day one in prison and continued day by day. There are a lot of choices to make like whether to be an informer for the Guards. You could just do the work assigned you and visit the Library to convince the authorities that you have reformed; this may get you an early release. There are a host of prison activities you could decide to join in with, Fighting contests, Cockroach racing, Gambling and others. All these affect your standing with the authorities and the other prisoners and thus affect the chances of getting out or beaten up.

Although this review may seem to concentrate on the training levels it is in fact a fair description of the various aspects of the game. Once the initial aspects of the game are grasped the universe is yours. You are free to follow whatever path you choose whether it be as a nasty Pirate, Merchant or savior of the universe, the choices are almost endless. Apart from yourself there are hundreds of other spacecraft populated by any of the other races, all doing their own thing. You can enter in to conversations with these other ships and do deals or enlist their help, you can fight them or trade with them or simply ignore them. The game comes with a printed manual that almost seems to be a refresher for those that have already played the original game. There is however an excellent ingame manual that goes in to a lot more detail and is a great help.

Space Ranger 2’s graphics are very good. It’s difficult to say much more than that; the explosions are well done both in space and in the Planetary Battles. The Stars move with a nice 3D effect while traveling through space. The actual spaceships are quite small on screen but that isn’t detrimental to the game, at that point it’s more about strategy than looks. The graphics come more ‘alive’ in the Planetary Wars where more detailed graphics are needed. The same is true for the games Audio. All the weapons make suitable noises as do the explosions and there is a nice sound track playing. If there is a small whinge it would be that it would be nice if the instructors and other characters conversations were audio rather than text based but it is a small point.

A topic of conversation at the IC-Games office was how many games Space Ranger 2 actually is. It’s a space sim, it’s a text based adventure, it’s a 3D shooter, and it’s a trading game. And it comes with the original game as well. A very impressive package with something for everybody.

Discuss the Space Rangers 2: Dominators review in the Forums

IC-Games RSS Feed

IC-Games Reviews and Previews (c) 2002-2007

Designed by James Collins

To have your product featured contact The Editor
Found some news? contact The News Desk
PR Dept - Andrew St.Denis
Additional Coding by James Collins and Phil Douglas
Get credited, submit breaking news at The News Desk
Want to hire one of our journalists? Enquire here
Want to see your advert on site? Enquire here

Ic-games.co.uk banner Ciao.co.uk

Find the best console offers for the video game lover like Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and all types of PC games.

Xbox 360 Games

Internet bingo is played by large and a vast amount of gamers, so you’re sure to make a network and friends. Whatever age or gender.